A VULNERABLE widow has been forced out of her home by phone scammers who have fleeced her out of her life-savings.

Freda Mudalige's daughter believes she may have been conned out of £10,000 over the years after giving in to constant requests from fraudsters.

The latest scheme saw them dupe Mrs Mudalige, 75, into buying £3,400 of iTunes vouchers from Asda in Taunton.

The crooks claimed to be from an IT firm and promised to build the retired bookkeeper a computer in return for the voucher codes.

Dilly Carter has moved her mother out of her house in Bishops Lydeard to the spare room in her Hertfordshire home.

Ms Carter said is was "heartbreaking" seeing conmen target her elderly bipolar mother, who lived alone and was the victim of another £500 scam last summer.

She added: "They claimed they were building her a computer and needed her to pay the money but they could only do it with iTunes vouchers.

"She was told by Asda you can only spend £250 as a maximum, but they can keep putting it through in several transactions to total the overall amount.

"She added them up all herself and took them to the till and bought them in a huge bundle."

Ms Carter said: "The same thing is probably happening with other people in this area and others all over the country.

"It makes me feel run-down and annoyed - beyond annoyed. I find it difficult to believe that would people would do that."

She has slammed Asda for allowing her mother to buy so many cards in £250 batches on two separate days.

She said: "Asda is a huge store. I can't understand how they can let it go as far as it's going.

"All these elderly people that live on their own and haven't got their family round them, you'd expect that big stores, post offices, places like that, would look after them.

"I obviously know my mum is ill, but it's Asda's responsibility to look out for elderly customers.

"My mum told me the assistants went and got the vouchers because they didn't have enough on display.

"How can anyone with the slightest bit of sense not think, 'Maybe I should tell my manager'."

An Asda spokesman said: "We have processes in place to help keep our customers safe from fraudsters and continually remind our colleagues to look out for the signs of these scams.

"We are in contact with Ms Mudalige and will do all we can to assist the police with their inquiries."

An Avon and Somerset Police spokesman said the crime had been logged but detectives had failed to identify the suspects.

He added: "Details of the crime have been passed to Action Fraud (City of London Police), who are logging these types of crimes."

An Action Fraud spokesman said: "If you receive an unexpected call whereby the caller requests an advance fee in the form of iTunes gift cards, the call should immediately be terminated."